The Quiet Place
by rowanred
Summary: PreSeries. Sometimes we need to lose the battle in order to remember what we were fighting for.


_The Quiet Place_

_By Rowan_

_Sometimes we need to loose the battle in order to remember what we were fighting for. The aftermath of a hunt forces the Winchesters to reevaluate the important things in life._

_Disclaimer: Nothing recognizable is mine. Such a pity._

_A/N: Whilst the first few chapters are a little heavy on the Dean whumpage, this story is more a chance for me to explore the relationship between the three men in the build up to Sam's departure for Stanford, so don't expect any heavy action. Also, if angst isn't your thing then you might want to give it a miss. If not, then stick around dear reader, and I hope you enjoy._

* * *

"Damnit, Sam. Get your head in the game." John Winchester snapped at his youngest when the boy's long legs brought him crashing into his father's back.

Sam flushed with anger. That was all his father seemed to say to him anymore. The look his brother fixed him with was undecipherable, but there was no doubt in Sam's mind that it was just as disapproving as the old man's.

"What?" he scowled, meeting Dean's blank gaze with a hostile glare of his own. Dean shrugged half-heartedly and shone his flashlight over to the far side of the room.

"Nothin'."

And that was all he seemed to hear from Dean. His family had been reduced to sharp reprimands and monosyllabic grunting. It was enough to drive anyone with half a mind up the wall. This was there fifth hunt in less than a month, and the tension between them was so sharp it could have been used to cut diamonds.

Sam was only months away from graduating high school. Which meant exams. Which meant study. Unfortunately, his father seemed to only see dates, not events. Graduation meant that Sam would be free to be hauled across the country like one of their father's old canvas sacks, and it seemed as though John Winchester was already starting to warm up to the idea.

Their current hunt took them only fifty miles away from the crappy little cabin they called home that year, but it was a harrowing prelude to the rest of Sam's life.

Once again, his protests had fallen on deaf ears, no matter how loud he voiced them. It was Sunday, and Monday saw the first of many papers that he needed to pass with high marks. Neither his father, nor Dean could understand why his final grade mattered to him. Hunting did not have a prerequisite in English and Math.

His furious _'I'm not Dean; I don't want to be your mindless fucking soldier' _had brought him nothing but a narrowly avoided black eye, the subject of his argument stepping between father and son with a look that made it perfectly clear what would happen if John's fist followed through on its arch.

His father had never hit either of them, but in the past few months, Sam had gained some level of satisfaction from watching the man fight to restrain himself. At times he wondered if he was actually daring John to try. Maybe then Dean wouldn't be so quick to bark _yes sir._

"Let's just get this over with." He muttered, ignoring Dean's pleading glance and his father's grinding teeth.

It wasn't that he couldn't see the value in what they did. Of course he could. And he knew it was necessary.

It was simply that the thought of doing _this_ day in, day out, for the rest of his life- it terrified him. No bright spark, no safety, simply darkness over and over…he couldn't do it.

He didn't envy his father's drive, not knowing what caused it. But he did envy his brother's unfailing belief in what they did. Perhaps if he could find his own belief, things would be easier.

With that though in mind, he wasn't prepared for the sudden way the ground shook beneath his feet.

For once, they could not blame it on a spirit or a werewolf. Off all the things to bring a Winchester down, a rotten staircase had done the damage in the end.

Sam had watched it happen as if it were a slow moving scene in one of Dean's beloved action flicks.

First the wood creaked, the deceptively unstable staircase shifting beneath their feet. John was already at the landing, flashlight in one hand, lighter in the other, when the structure crumpled beneath his two sons as though it were a poorly built house of cards. The extravagant winding staircase crumpled under the weight of its fine ornamentation, the bottom folding in on itself and starting a shockwave that could be felt at the other side of the large Victorian house.

A hasty shove at the base of his spine made Sam leap the final three stairs. His long legs covered the distance, and his father wrapped a strong arm around his waist to anchor him to safety. It was an awkward twist, but Sam still turned, throwing aside his own flashlight in his haste to reach his brother.

Then, like it happened so many times on television, Sam could feel the brush of Dean's fingers against his own, light and taunting, before the structure gave way and Dean vanished under a cloud of old dust and splinters.

Though the following sound of crashing timber would stay with John until he died, Sam heard nothing. Someone had pressed the mute button in his head. He couldn't hear. He couldn't see. Nothing existed until John shook his roughly and bellowed into his ear.

"Take the back stairs. Now, Sam. Go!" Then he was running. Screw the angry spirit. Screw the hunt. He took the servants stairs and wondered wearily why that simple wooden structure was so much more secure than the main monstrosity.

The house was huge, and the back stairs brought him out in the damp kitchen. A dinning room, sitting room and study stood between him and his brother, so Sam tore through them all, dodging chairs and tables, hopping over uneven floorboards and ducking under ludicrously low doorways until he skidded to a halt at the site of destruction. His father was nowhere to be seen.

"Dean!"

No answer. Cautiously, and picking up a dozen splinters as he went, Sam picked his way through the chaos until he found himself close to the spot where Dean disappeared. "Dean!" he shouted again, his voice echoing against the high ceilings. Again, no answer.

God damnit. This, _this_ was why he hated hunting. They should have been a bar in a pre-emptive drinking binge for Dean's twenty first, not in a moldy, rotten house on the hunt for some miserable old hag who had it out for the local school kids. They shouldn't have been there. Anywhere but-

-he spotted Dean's watch before anything else. It was a hideous monstrosity Sam had bought him years ago from a porn shop and Dean had never been without it since. The face was smashed, blood speckled, and hanging loosely against a limb so dirty Sam had initially mistaken it for more wreckage.

"Dean! God."

His own fingers were shaking so badly that it was a miracle Sam found a pulse in his brother's wrist at all. Slow and weak.

The surrounding timber flew about them haphazardly in his haste to uncover the young hunter's still form. When the final piece was lifted, Sam was struck by a horrible, sickening wish.

He wished that his brother had died.

Dean's head was bent back awkwardly, and the wound that stretched from the base of his skull to his left ear bleed freely. Sam took a harsh breath and tried to remind himself that head wounds always looked worse than they were; but the blood dribbling from Dean's mouth and nose made it impossible to fight back the violent sparks of fear that attacked him.

The phantom brush of Dean's fingers against his own made his eyes burn. Recrimination was bitter and welcome as he took in the other injuries his eyes could see.

Dean was…broken. There was no other word for it. A china doll had been tossed down the stairs instead of his strong brother. Limbs were twisted, broken, and limp. Sam had never been so terrified of touching anything in his life.

Hesitantly, he drew Dean's shirt carefully back and felt for broken ribs. His hands came away sticky with blood and he almost choked on the sob that tore its way from his chest.

"Easy, Sam. Easy." His father's hands pulled him away slowly, as if Dean were already dead. He was in a daze, but recognized the three men that swarmed into the space he had occupied. Paramedics. His father had called an ambulance. Dean was going to be pissed. He hated hospitals.

"Did you get it?" He asked his father. Suddenly it was important for him to know. They weren't leaving until they killed the bitch. Not until they finished the job. Dean would never forgive them otherwise.

"Yeah, son." His father's voice sounded strange. Stretched. "Yeah. I got her. We can go."

Mutely, Sam waited until the paramedics transported Dean to the waiting ambulance, and followed behind them as if in a funerary procession.

* * *

Sometimes John Winchester was convinced he was living someone else' life. There were times like this when it felt as though he was watching the world through a foggy window. The sounds were muted, the images fuzzy, and it was up to his boys to provide the narrative for his life and keep him in touch with the world.

It had been that way in the months after Mary died. Life no longer felt real, and if it was, John had no desire to live it. His sons were the only tangible things left for him to hold on to. A gurgle from Sammy, Dean's silent seriousness, little things that served as a reminder that there was a world outside of his pain.

This time was no different. He could see the doctor, a man younger than John and twice as arrogant. He could hear the words being spoken, though he wasn't entirely sure they were English, or even human, but the only things he was aware of were Sam's fingers trying to break his own, and Dean's lifeless hand beneath the both of theirs.

A lurch and Sam's hand pulled away from his and Dean's, severing the bond between the small family with an angry tirade of words his youngest rarely used. Sam drew himself up to his considerable height and bore down on the doctor with the righteous wrath of a scared little brother.

Doctor Morgan, Dean consulting physician, was not a short man, but next to Sam he was dwarfed by both height and attitude. As John's fingers closed more securely around Dean's wrist to feel his son's pulse, he tried to remember exactly when Sam had become a carbon copy of his old man, and wondered if that was the reason he and the boy could never see eye to eye any more.

Eye to eye. Something lurched in his stomach. He was a vet from one of his country's messiest wars. He wasn't going to throw up just because his little boy was lost, lifeless amongst a dozen machines. He sure as hell wasn't going to break down. Dean was going to wake up- any minute now, he knew it- John had to be the man his sons had grown up with.

Tearing his eyes from Dean's pale form, John grabbed hold of his game face with both hands and rounded on the irate physician.

The man thought he had his hands full with Sam.

The poor bastard had another thing coming.

* * *

Faced with two men with the combined patience of a petulant five year old, Pete Morgan found it difficult to remember why he had wanted to be a doctor in the first place. Long hours, bad coffee and murderous family members were not in the brochure, that was for damn sure.

Dean Parker was the last patient on his rounds, and oh, boy, what a kid to go out with. Fresh out of surgery, and clinging onto life with the stubbornness of an ox. The boy should have died a hundred times before he reached the operating table. Morgan's career had not been a long one, but it had certainly never seen such a tenacious young man as Dean.

"Right now we are keeping Dean in a chemically induced coma until the contusions to his brain die down." Morgan watched the reactions of the two men carefully; wanting to be sure they were paying full attention before continuing. "We've managed to repair the damage to his liver and kidneys. His ribs are a concern, though the coma will give them time to set without movement risking further damage. He is very lucky he didn't puncture a lung."

John grunted, and the boy remained tight lipped and white faced.

"His left knee will require surgery to repair extensive ligament damage, and until he wakes up there is no conclusive way of knowing the full effects of the head trauma."

"But he will wake up, right?" The giant kid suddenly looks about twelve, shrinking in on himself and itching closer to the unconscious boy on the bed.

"I want to keep him in the barb coma for another twenty four hours. I've scheduled him in for another scan tomorrow. It can sometimes take a week or more before the cerebral swelling goes down, especially in a case as severe as Dean's." He stressed, avoiding the question. Call him a heartless bastard, but he'd already seen the devastation caused by false hope, and that was one thing he would not be handing out to this family. "The key thing here is patience. We can't rush this. I won't lie, your boy is in for a rough time, but I promise you we will do everything we can to help him get better."

The father grunted again, before putting a large hand on his kid's shoulder and propelling him gently towards his brother. "Sammy, why don't you stay here and keep Dean company. I'm going to check the nurses have all the paperwork in order."

Morgan got the feeling Sam wasn't paying any attention to his father's words. The kid looked dead on his feet, but he obediently slunk slowly to Dean's side.

"He won't break if you touch him." He smiled gently. He had a brother himself. When he wasn't so busy fighting with the jerk, he could understand Sam's fears.

Sam nodded and turned his back to them. Following John's gaze, Morgan stepped out of the room on John Parker's heels.

Without John's shadow looming over him, boosting his courage and enforcing stoicism, and in the face of loosing the person who meant the most to him in the world, Sam crumpled into the chair besides Dean's bed. It felt as though someone had taken a hammer to his legs, and the bones were neither complete, nor strong enough to hold his weight any longer.

Adrenaline from the hunt, and fear over Dean had pushed his heart rate through the roof. Exhaustion had been ignored in face of a more terrifying reality. During the long hours Dean had spent in surgery, Sam had been plagued by an unnatural energy, wearing a grove in the family waiting room as his father filled out the various forms required for Dean's treatment. He couldn't have sat down if he tried, jumping at every movement and hearing the clock tick in time with his heartbeat.

Alone with his brother, someone had pulled the plug on the bubbling restlessness inside of him.

"Hey Dean." He whispered, afraid that if he spoke louder than the beeping heart monitor, Dean's heart might suddenly forget to beat. "You're in the hospital, guess you figured that by now." He laughed, but it was low and awkward, as if imagining the face his brother would have pulled in response. "But it's okay, man. Dad and I are here. We're not going to leave you alone."

Unconsciously, he found Dean's hand under the various IV lines and squeezed the still fingers gently. A part of him ached when the hand in his wasn't snatched away with a mocking _'Dude, what the fuck?' _"Jesus, Dean. If you wanted my attention, you could have just dyed your hair green. A coma's a little extreme, don't you think?"

More silence from his brother. Sam began to wonder when it was Dean had last spoken to him. One the hunt, yes, but before that, about random, brotherly things. He couldn't remember, and it hurt.

A shadow fell across the bed.

"He's lost a lot of weight." Sam whispered to his father.

John circled the bed and took a seat. Dean's other hand was wrapped in plaster, and Sam could tell his father was too afraid to stroke Dean's hair. Instead the man's hands coiled around the rim of the bed frame, tense and white knuckled.

"I thought it was just the hospital, yeah? That he's sick. But his hand…" Sam trailed off. The truth was blindingly obvious now he took the time to really look at Dean. The older boy had always been lean, fit, strong, but his cheekbones had grown sharper, and there was no softness to his frame. He was harsh, deadly. He looked as if he hadn't known real food in a long time.

"He doesn't eat with us anymore." John responded gruffly. "He's never at dinner."

The three of them took it in turns to cook. Dean was the more adventurous with his meals, preferring to make rice and pasta dishes, though their budget rarely stretched to anything more exotic. Sam had used to love dinner with his father and brother. It was the only real time John took to sit down with his boys and pretend they were a real family. Now they were just a bitter reminder of everything they weren't. A mockery of normalcy.

Somewhere in the last few months, Sam had rebelled against them. Something else he had forgotten- the last time they had sat down together as a family without conversation escalating into a full on shouting match. Those few, quiet dinners they did manage were overshadowed by the threat of something darker.

Feeling Dean's hand, thin and fragile beneath his own, Sam recalled all the times Dean had caught him or been there to break his fall.

The one time his brother needed him to do the same, he could do nothing but feel the brush of fingers against his own.

Feeling more alone that ever before, he watched as John gave up the battle in his head, and laid one gentle hand against Dean's cheek. It was the first time in years their father had touched either of them with nothing but love and affection.

For the first time on months, he and his father were united.

Dean might be dying, but Sam and John had formed a silent truce.

Somehow, Sam figured Dean would have appreciated the irony.

TBC

_AN/ Huge hugs to Eden for the beta. You can blame Dr Morgan all on her._


End file.
